French team: Enzo Millot, Deschamps’ next surprise?

At 22, Enzo Millot has already been around the block. Since his arrival in Stuttgart in 2021, the Frenchman has been able to draw from the right drawers, at the right times, to establish himself as one of the best players in his position in the Bundesliga. However, the case was not won at the start. Arriving with the label of hope from Monaco, with whom he only played two small Ligue 1 matches under Niko Kovac, Millot was immediately slowed down by a knee injury. “My beginnings were difficult. I seriously injured my knee and was out for two and a half months. I was coming from Monaco, I was a very young player, without experience. It was obviously complicated. And then the language barrier didn’t help me either. I discovered a completely different mentality in Germany.”he explained to Our World Cup in January.

Despite this premature setback, Millot was able to take the bull by the horns and come back reinvigorated. Initially little used by the Italian Pellegrino Matarazzo, he finally took advantage of the arrival of Sebastian Hoeness in April 2023 to shake up the established order. “I recognized from the beginning that Enzo had exceptional abilities, and I immediately found him open and approachable. He was always ready to perform both in training and in matches. The boy is 20 years old, so he could sometimes be disturbed by distractions, but not him”praised the German coach in June 2023, after narrowly saving himself during the relegation play-off in the Bundesliga against Hamburg. Having provided a decisive passer in the first leg won by Stuttgart (1-3), Millot extinguished the opponent’s hopes four days later by scoring twice (3-1).

Everything has been speeding up for him for a year now.

At the end of such a trying season, it is difficult to predict that Stuttgart would secure a place in the Champions League 10 months later, with the bonus of a second place acquired at the expense of Bayern Munich. However, the The Red achieved the feat, with an attacking duo Guirassy – Undav XXL, a hermetic defense embodied by Ito and Anton, but also a midfield where Millot reigned supreme. With 5 goals and 4 assists in 31 Bundesliga games, the native of Lucé quite simply had the most prolific season of his young career, and also the most intense. No time to stop and take stock of what he had just achieved with his club, Millot set sail for Paris in July, where the French public had the opportunity to discover him during the Olympic Games.

In the quarter-finals, he put in an XXL performance against Argentina (he was finally sent off for teasing while he had been replaced a little earlier), before scoring the first French goal during the defeat against Spain in the final. An assumed takeover, which also pushed the new coach of the Bleuets, Gérald Baticle, to give him the captain’s armband this month. “He has the human qualities of a joyful leader, he is a natural captain and I am not asking him to transform himself, but to remain himself and to be exemplary in order to set the tone even more if necessary.”explained the former Angers coach last week. Now, it’s up to him to ride this good period to try to see what’s happening on the floor above. On Tuesday, he would also be well inspired to perform against Real Madrid in C1, a match that will obviously be scrutinized by Didier Deschamps and his staff… Before, why not, taking the bridge to the A’s like his buddy Manu Koné this month.